If your business has an online presence, chances are you’ll go through a social media crisis at some point along the way. This infographic from Entrepreneur shares 8 things you can do to manage a crisis situation:

Have a plan.

Pay attention.

Know what a crisis is.

Acknowledge it as quickly as you can.

Let people vent.

Keep your cool.

Build an area to house information.

Turn a negative into a positive.

Why It Matters: All businesses, no matter how successful, occasionally come under fire on social media. Having a crisis isn’t the issue—how you handle it is. Using a potentially negative event to impact your business positively is one of the benefits of social networking. As long as you have a plan in place and approach the situation calmly and empathetically, your business will come out ahead.

Cloud-based software is the new standard when it comes to business. Everyone from big banks to local retailers are using it to manage their data, transactions, and daily tasks. Here are 5 benefits of cloud-based software for local establishments:

Flexibility

Efficiency

Cost

Security

Extendability

Why It Matters: Cloud-based software can have a significant, positive impact on how you run your local business. If you’re not already running your management processes in the cloud, now’s the time to consider switching!

Most employees cringe at the thought of being asked to track their time. Here are a few tips to help make the process more efficient.

Tip 1: Tell people why time tracking is important.

Tip 2: Work toward a common goal.

Tip 3: Give employees autonomy.

Why It Matters: Without insight into how your employees spend their time, it’s very difficult for you as the business owner to tell which tasks are time sucks, which staff members are most productive, and where you can make changes to increase productivity and boost revenue. Providing perspective for your staff and conveying why it’s important for them to report their time accurately will go a long way toward making the process less tedious.

About the Author

Ashley Taylor Anderson is a content developer and marketer who's spent her career knee-deep in the B2B technology space. In previous professional lives, she worked as a science textbook editor, media producer, and pastry chef.